Writers' Wit Is Storyline At Seminar

KEY WEST — Disasters, war, terrorism, torture: What the world needs now is yucks, sweet yucks.

That's the early consensus among the luminaries gathered for the first weekend of the 23rd annual Key West Literary Seminar, the subject of which is humor.

"It turns the darkness we encounter into light," said African-American poet and novelist Al Young. "Sometimes it takes humor to deal with really pressing problems."

Or, as former U.S. poet laureate Billy Collins remarked in his keynote address Thursday night, "Laughter is an alternative to screaming."

With a lineup that includes not only such wits as Wendy Wasserstein, Blanche McRary Boyd and Dave Barry, but also such literary brainiacs as Lorrie Moore, Terence McNally and Alison Lurie, the participants chose, for the most part, to crack wise rather than trying to figure out what makes something funny.

Collins set the tone in his keynote speech, nimbly conveying some actual information about how the Romantics kicked jocularity out of poetry for more than 100 years but couching it in copious quantities of self-deprecating humor.

"I was here two years ago for the poetry seminar," Collins said, "and apparently did not misbehave sufficiently to be disqualified from returning."

Buttonholed outside the San Carlos Institute on Duval Street, where the seminar has been housed for the past 13 years, novelist Christopher Buckley invoked E.B. White's famous comment that discussing humor is like dissecting a frog.

"You might figure out how it works, but the frog will not survive the operation," Buckley said.

In the parlance of the recent election, this is a predominantly Blue crowd, with jokes at the expense of President Bush flowing freely.

"A lot of really nasty things happening in the country are good for humorists," said Calvin Trillin, the humorist and journalist long associated with the New Yorker magazine. "Nasty things like the re-election of the president."

To a humorist, Trillin said, bad news is like tooth decay to a dentist. "It's a pity, but it's good for business," deadpanned Trillin.

Of all the tough things facing humanity at the moment, the one that can't be joked about are the recent tsunamis that killed upward of 140,000 people around the Indian Ocean, with scenes of death and suffering still playing daily on the television news.

"Nope," said Trillin. "Not one tsunami joke."

"Can't think of a one," said Roy Blount Jr.

Momentarily waxing serious, social critic Barbara Ehrenreich said the Republicans, with control of both houses of Congress, the White House and the Supreme Court, have complete power, yet still talk about a "liberal elite" who secretly run everything.

Buckley, who once served as chief speechwriter for then vice president George H.W. Bush, may be one of the few conservatives here. His estimation of the value of humor is no less keen than that of his more liberal-leaning colleagues.

"It's been said that living well is the best revenge," Buckley said between sessions. "Laughing hard is even better. That's why it's good to have an event like this at a time when things are not going so well in Indonesia and Iraq."

The seminar continues with a second round of panels and lectures beginning Thursday, with mostly different celebrity authors. Calvin Trillin will deliver the keynote address.